A pile of fish sausages at the market

4 Replies to “A pile of fish sausages at the market”

hey justin (how’s it going?)–is fish sausage made of scraps & offal (y’know, like the saying about hot dogs…”made mostly from lips & peckers”)is it nasty because it isn’t fresh? or because it’s the less desirable parts of the fish? or because of the blending of different fish? or all of the above?
…inquiring minds in tuna taco land want to know!

I would say all of the above plus the fact that its color and texture is similar to spam (although a bit softer) and has a sweet, fishlike flavor to it… It’s not actually so bad, but its an acquired taste that I see no need for in this day and age. As you probably know, the Japanese diet did not include much meat until the past 25 years or so. As such, it was expensive. I imagine it was cheaper and more fitting to the Japanese palate to make sausages with fish back then, and the product took off. They are still popular today – sometimes you’ll see little red skinned variations of them in bentos, either whole or halved and then split at the ends for a “tulip” effect. Now you’ve got me hooked on the history of these things – I’ll take a closer look at the packaging the next time I’m at Jusco.
BTW, it’s nice hearing from you again!

right back at ya, yo!
I’ve seen tulips and penguins, & there’s actually a distributor in the US that sells the blades to cut those things. i thought about getting some. Imagine if Japanese housewives became moyhels!